EDUCATION FOR THE 

ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY 

IN THE WORLD 



p. p. CLAXTON 

Unltad Stat** CemntUsioner of Education 



^ 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE NATIONAL EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION AT MILWAUKEE, WIS^ JULY Z, 1919 



m 



y*iS&^ 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1919 



EDUCATION FOR THE 

ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY 

IN THE WORLD 



p. p. CLAXTON 

United States Commissioner of Education 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE NATIONALiEDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION AT MILWAUKEE, WIS., JULY 2, 1919 



WW 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1919 






s •' **• 

OCT 3 1919 



EDUCATION FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT 
OF DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD. 



To the distinguished gentlemen who represent here 
this evening France and Great Britain I bring the greet- 
ings of a country dedicated to democracy from the be- 
ginning of its national life, and of a people who for three 
hundred years have been coming to understand ever 
more clearly that democracy is impossible without 
universal education, and that the fostering of right 
education and the promotion of the means therefor con- 
stitute the highest function of statesmanship and the 
first duty of the representatives of a free people, I 
hope it may be my good fortune to have the opportunity 
of welcoming these gentlemen to the City of Washington 
and showing them something of the work of the Bureau 
of Education and of other agencies through which the 
Federal Government expresses its interest in education, 
agencies ail-too numerous, too little related, and too 
meagerly supported. 

It is fitting and well that representatives of the coun- 
tries which before and through the great war have done 
most for the establishment of democracy in the world 
and for the preservation of freedom should meet here 
for the discussion of that education which alone can 
make democracy safe for the world and for itself, and 
without which there can be no freedom worthy of the 
name. 

Our victory over the forces of autocracy and militarism 
brings with it great moral responsibility, because on us 
"lies the task of saving and reconstructing all that is 
worth saving in civilization." The task of building the 

3 



4 EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 

new world on a surer foundation and in finer and more 
just proportions is ours. 

And this is a task for all the civilized and free nations 
of the world, working intelligently and patiently to- 
gether. No one of these, working and walking alone, 
can accomplish much or go far. Our interests are com- 
mon. We are all henceforth bound up in the sheaf of 
life together. The private weal of nations is dependent 
henceforth on the public welfare of the world. For all 
the higher things of life and for political safety the 
league of nations does actually now exist and must 
continue, in spirit at least, whether or not the proposed 
league may be formally ratified by the Senate of the 
United States and other bodies possessed of the treaty- 
making power. When division of labor has been ex- 
tended to such an extent that international commerce 
is necessary to the very physical existence of all peoples, 
and blockades mean starvation ; when airships cross the 
Atlantic in i6 hours; when the leaves and branches of 
the trees in Chevy Chase Park in Washington whisper 
to the ears of the listener messages sent out from Nauen, 
Germany; and a man in his cellar at Hyattsville, Md., 
talks through the earth with another in Berlin; when 
that which is whispered in the closets of anarchy in 
Russia is proclaimed by an exploding bomb at the front 
door of the Attorney General of the United States, no 
country can hope longer to live unto itself. All isola- 
tions, splendid or otherwise, are gone forevermore. 
The life currents of every people run through all the 
world. In an age in which the use of complex labor- 
saving machinery and the scientific control of unlimited 
forces in production and transportation and in all the 
arts of peace and war reduce to a minimum the value 
of unskilled labor and make ignorance more helpless 
than ever before, no country may hope to hold its own 
in the fierce competitions of industry and commerce, 
or to perform worthily its part in the great cooperative 
tasks of rehabilitation and reconstruction until all its 
people have been instructed and trained. 



EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 5 

The world war has served to awaken not only us of 
the United States but thoughtful people in all countries 
of the world to the importance of education, and to 
emphasize the need of making this education democratic 
and adapting it to the varying conditions and individual 
requirements of all. 

Those who have been closer to the war than we have 
and who have borne a larger share of its burdens have, 
it appears, been more strongly affected in this respect 
than we. This is shown by the heroic efforts of the 
French people to keep open their schools even when 
the life of the nation was in the doubtful balance, 
by their success in keeping children in school even 
within the lines of battle, and by their quick response 
in redoubled efforts to supply their educational needs 
as soon as the signing of the armistice gave time for 
thought of the future. 

It is shown even more strikingly by the passage of 
the Education Act of 191 8, the so-called Fisher Bill, 
through the English Parliament, an act which has 
attracted much attention and has had widespread 
influence in this country. The spirit which guided the 
act through Parliament and made it possible is indicated 
in a speech by Mr. Fisher, its author, at a conference 
on new ideals in education in August, 191 7. After 
recalling the fact that the University of Leyden, which 
has contributed so much to Holland and to the world, 
was founded as a memorial to the long and gallant 
resistance of the starving city to the beleaguering 
forces of Spain, Mr. Fisher urges "that our memorial 
of this war should be a great University of England, 
which should be the means of raising the whole popu- 
lation of this country to a higher level of learning and 
culture than has hitherto been possible." 

Commenting on this act, Dr. I. L. Kandel, for the 
United States Bureau of Education, says: 

There is not associated with it primarily the purpose of improv- 
ing the educational system for furnishing better tools for economic 
competition at home and abroad. It is animated wholly by the 



6 EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 

aim of providing the best opportunities for equipping the individual 
with the physical, moral, and intellectual training that makes for 
good citizenship, that prepares for the freedom and responsibilities 
of adult life. 

This act thus escapes the fundamental weakness of 
the German system of popular education, now dis- 
credited, let us hope, forever in this respect, however 
much there may still be in it of value for us and for 
other free peoples in this new era of democrac5^ 

Speaking further of the new interest in popular 
education in Great Britain, Dr. Kandel says: 

For the student of education the feature that is of profound 
significance is the recognition that a sound educational system 
is the best foundation for the social and political reconstruction 
that must follow the war, and since the keynote of this recon- 
struction is the improvement of the position and opportunities 
of every man and woman as an individual and as a citizen, the 
educational reform must be considered as a contribution toward 
the further development of the aspirations of democracy and 
humanity. 

It may be noted also, as an indication of the new- 
conception of education and of its extending borders^ 
that the Education Act of 191 8 provides for the con- 
centration of supervision over the activities and welfare 
of children and adults in the hands of educational 
authorities — e. g., child labor and employment, labor 
bureaus, recreation, and health. 

EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY MUST BE ALL- 
COMPREHENSIVE. 

In the United States and elsewhere plans for education 
for democracy must be all-comprehensive and must be 
adapted to the conditions and needs of all individuals. 
We still hold that all men are created equal, with certain 
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness, and equality of opportunity — 
at least such equality of opportunity as may come 
through education. To all must be given full and 
free opportunity for that kind and degree of education, 
that will develop most perfectly their physical, mental. 



EDUCATION FOR ESTABUSHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 7 

and moral manhood; fit them for the duties and respon- 
sibilities of democratic citizenship; prepare them for 
making a good and honest living for themselves and 
those dependent upon them, and for adding their just 
part to the common wealth by some form of useful, 
skillful work, done intelligently and joyously. It must 
also guarantee to them a maximum of that sweetness 
and light and of that deepening and widening, refining, 
and ripening of the human soul which we call culture — 
a thing quite different from the much-vaunted Kultur 
which narrowed and hardened, darkened and poisoned 
and embittered the soul of another people and led them 
on toward destruction. 

In our democracy there must be no forgotten man or 
woman, no lost waif of a child. If we would attain to 
our best and highest possibilities, no important talent or 
ability of any child, however rare, the development of 
which would contribute to its own welfare and happiness 
or to the happiness and welfare of society, of State, or of 
the race, must be neglected or left uncultivated. The 
richness of society, of the State, and of the race, consists 
not less in variety than in quantity. This is true at 
least so long as this variety is bound together in unity 
by the development and cultivation of those common 
elements of mind and soul which unite on the common 
plane of humanity and citizenship. 

Not only must society offer to all full and free oppor- 
tunity for the kind and degree of education here indi- 
cated. Society must also see to it that no child at least 
is deprived of the opportunity offered because of the 
poverty, the ignorance, the indifference, or the greed of 
its parents or guardian, or by the narrowness of view or 
sectarian zeal of any party or church. This last does not 
mean the suppression of private or parochial schools or 
undue restriction of their activities. I believe in the 
public school. I believe in the private or parochial school 
also. In the Bureau of Education we call them all public. 
Whatever the source of their support or the form of their 
control, they are all public in their aim and function of 



8 EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 

preparing for the duties and responsibilities of life and 
citizenship in our democracy. The school not under the 
immediate control of the State may prove the salvation 
of the school called public against a deadening routine 
and a narrow and hard formalism. It does mean, how- 
ever, that society as a whole must assure itself that the 
schools to which children are permitted to go in lieu of 
attendance upon the public schools are not lacking or 
deficient in the things necessary to prepare for citizen- 
ship and successful living in our American democracy. 
Society must also provide whatever means may be neces- 
sary to enable children and their parents who may, 
through misfortune, be dependent upon them, to live 
while the children attend school. 

EDUCATION FOR HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS. 

Of the elements of education, first in importance is 
health ; the establishment of good health and right health 
habits through proper supervision and direction of the 
diet, the sleep, the recreation, and other activities of 
children, and such instruction in things pertaining to 
health as will insure a maximum of health and vitality 
in the population of the State and the Nation. Like 
unto this and bound up with it is such physical educa- 
tion and training as will give to all strength of body and 
ready control of nerves and muscles, and make them fit 
for all the duties of peace and war. 

The chief medical officer of the English Board of 
Education in a recent report made the following re- 
marks, which I quote here especially for that part of 
them which refers directly to this subject : 

The future and strength of the Nation unquestionably depend 
upon the vitality of the child, upon his health and development, 
and upon his education and equipment for citizenship. Great and 
far-reaching issues have their origin and some of their inspiration 
in him. Yet in a certain though narrow sense everything depends 
upon his physique. If that be sound, we have the rock upon 
which a nation and a race may be built; if that be impaired, we 
lack that foundation and build on the sand. It would be difficult 
to overestimate the volume of national inefficiencv, of unfitness 



Education for establishment of democracy. 9 

and suffering, of unnecessary expenditure, and of industrial unrest 
and unemployment to which this country consents because of its 
relative failure to rear and to educate a healthy, virile, and well- 
equipped race of children and young people. There is no invest- 
ment comparable to this, no national economy so fundamental; 
there is also no waste so irretrievable as that of a nation which is 
careless of its rising generation. And the goal is not an industrial 
machine, a technical workman, a "hand," available merely for 
the increase of material output, and the acquisition of a wage at 
the earliest moment, but a human personality, well grown and 
ready in body and mind, able to work, able to play, a good citizen, 
the healthy parent of a future generation. If these things be true! 
as I believe they are, no reconstruction of the State can wisely 
ignore the claim of the child. 

The examination of men called for the Army of the 
United States by the processes of the selective draft 
showed that something more than one-third were unfit 
for full military service, and a smaller, but still too large 
per cent, were unfit for any form of military servdce, at 
a time when the standards were lowered to meet the 
emergencies of a great war into which we were preparing 
to send millions as we had sent into other wars hundreds 
of thousands. Had Germany, according to her plans and 
expectations, succeeded against the armies of France and 
England before we were ready to go in, and if as a 
result the full strength of her victorious armies had 
been thrown against us, this depletion of our strength 
through lack of physical fitness would have been felt 
severely and might have proved fatal. A recent health 
survey of one of our great States, which contains almost 
exactly one-fiftieth of the population of the United States, 
revealed the fact that, on an average, 500,000 persons, 
nearly one-fourth of its entire population, are sick all 
the time. If only half of these, a low estimate, are per- 
sons of producing age, and if the loss in productive 
power is only $500 a year, again a low estimate, then 
the loss to this State in productive power is not less than 
$125,000,000 a year. Add to this the time of those who 
must care for the sick, and the loss from weakened 
energy of those who are accounted well, and the $125,- 

129941—19 2 



lO EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 

000,000 may well be doubled. This is a loss altogether 
too large for this or any other State when most of it may 
easily be avoided by proper care, instruction, and train- 
ing. Multiply the $250,000,000 lost in productive power 
by this State annually by 50 for the whole Unit&d States, 
and you have the staggering total of $12,500,000,000, or 
one-half of the direct cost of the war to the United 
States. 

This takes no account of the unnecessary suffering and 
sorrow of the sick and of their relatives and friends. 
These are beyond calculation and the power of figures to 
express. 

Everything in regard to the public health that is edu- 
cational and formative belongs to the schools and is a 
responsibility upon teachers and education officers. 
Physicians and boards of health may give much assist- 
ance, and teachers and education officers should seek 
and have their hearty cooperation, but still the responsi- 
bility is primarily not theirs but ours. 

I have dwelt on this matter of health and physical 
training longer than I otherwise should or would have 
done, both because of its importance and because until 
now it has been almost wholly neglected in practice. 

ILLITERACY AND AMERICANIZATION. 

May I here merely mention two phases of educational 
work pressing upon us at this time because of the cos- 
mopolitan make-up of our population and because of the 
inefficiency of our school systems in the past and of our 
long neglect of duty to ourselves and to those who live 
among us without any adequate preparation for American 
life and citizenship. I refer, of course, to our four or 
five millions who have no practical knowledge of our 
language, and the five or six millions of adult illiterates, 
foreign and native born. The dangers and weaknesses 
arising from our neglect of their education have recently 
been revealed to us as by lightning flash. These dangers 
and weaknesses and the shame and disgrace of it all 
remain with us and shall remain until Nation. States, 



EDUCATION FOR ESTABUSHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 1 1 

and local communities give ample opportunity to all to 
acquire at least the power to speak, read, and write the 
English language with some degree of ease and fluency, 
and use at least the compulsion of persuasion and attrac- 
tiveness of program and methods to induce them to take 
advantage of the opportunities offered. 

For the foreign bom there must also be offered in the 
same way instruction in all those other things some 
knowledge of which is necessary to intelligent and 
successful living in America. For the millions of illit- 
erates and for the other millions of near illiterates in- 
struction at least in the elements of many important 
subjects about which they have been unable to acquire 
knowledge because of lack of ability to read the printed 
page must be given. 

Here, again, some estimate at least may be made of the 
loss in productive power of the Nation through a condi- 
tion that might be changed in a few years and at a com- 
paratively small cost. The loss is probably not less but 
much more than two and a half billion dollars a year — 
more than two and a half times the interest on all our 
expenditures in the war. For economic reasons and for 
many others we should not neglect these problems 
longer. They should soon be solved to such an extent 
that they will cease to be special problems to be con- 
sidered apart from the more general problems of public 
education. Because this can be done the means for 
their solution should be considered temporary but of 
such immediate and present importance as will not 
permit them to be postponed. 

MORAIv EDUCATION. 

Another phase of education to which many think, 
probably with some degree of justification, that we have 
given too little attention in our public schools is moral 
education. I know that we all agree that the one 
supreme end and aim of all education is morality — 
conduct. But have we always kept this in mind as we 
should? I also know the difficulty of teaching morals 



12 EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 

directly, and I agree with most of you that religious 
dogmas and sectarian creeds should not and need not be 
taught in the public schools of a country of religious 
freedom and of numerous and wealthy churches. But 
we must not forget that as freedom extends and scien- 
tific knowledge and inventive skill add to the power of 
men and women to do evil as well as to do good, the 
necessity of training children to good moral habits and 
of forming in the minds and hearts of youth sound prin- 
ciples of self -guidance to religious conduct becomes much 
more important than in the days of greater outside 
restraint and of less power to do either good or evil. 
Our moral life must be strengthened, broadened, and 
enlarged to keep pace with the broadening and extending 
of our material and social life. Through literature, his- 
tory, song and story, and by every other available means, 
the future members of our society must be practically 
convinced of the brotherhood of man and be taught to 
love their neighbors as themselves, knowing that love is 
the fulfillment of all law. They must be taught the full 
meaning of the injunction of Jesus, ' 'Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye also unto them." 
For this is, indeed, the summary of all that the laws 
would enforce and of all that the prophets have aspired 
to. Withal they must be taught that moral obligations 
hold across the boundary lines of States and nations, and 
that nations no more than individuals may do whatso- 
ever they will and can. They must be made to under- 
stand that might does not make right, that only right 
shall finally have the power of might. 

Whatever lessons or literature or exercises may be 
necessary for this and for the inculcation of sound and 
sane patriotism are legitimate for school use and should 
on proper occasion and in the proper way be used. 

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 

Despite the shudder of abhorrence which comes to us 
from the thought of mere brutal efficiency uninspired by 
good will and guided only by individual, class, and 



EDUCATION FOR ESTABUSHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 1 3 

national selfishness, we must make our education more 
effectively vocational than it has been or is. Mere weak- 
ness is not goodness, and want of strength is not virtue. 
Strength, knowledge, good will, skill, and strong purpose 
to pioduce and use aright should characterize the demo- 
cratic men and women of the future. In America as 
nowhere else in the world, I believe, life and work are 
one. We put our life into our work and rejoice in it. 
We make our work our life, and it gives us joy and 
strength. It is this that has made it possible for us to 
conquer a continent in a little more than loo years, and 
in that time to accumulate more of material value than 
the whole world had accumulated in all the milleniums 
up to the beginning of this hundred years. It is this 
that has given to us, though only one-seventeenth of the 
population of the world, more than one-third of the 
wealth of the world. It is this also that has taught us 
the joy not of hoarding our wealth but of spending it 
liberally, even lavishly, for the relief of suffering, for the 
welfare of mankind through the accomplishment of any 
purpose that appeals to us as noble and worthy. This 
principle of the oneness of life and work must grow and 
spread with democracy. For in a democracy no man 
except the unfortunate may eat his bread in the sweat 
of another man's face, and none except the vicious and 
undemocratic will willingly lay on the back of another 
the lash of unrequited toil. In a democracy as no- 
where else, education is for service, and unless it take 
hold on the life the people live and make them intelli- 
gent about that life, and upon the work they do and 
make them skillful in that work, unless in the broad 
sense at least it be vocational, then it is not educational 
in the highest and best sense. 

Just now, perhaps, vocational education is more 
important than ever before. The total cost of the war 
has been equal to approximately one-third of the wealth 
of the world as estimated for 191 4 — not at its valuation 
for taxes, but at its real value. The world was already 
poor, and a very large per cent of its people — men, 



14 EDUCATION FOR ESTABUSHMEjNT OF DEMOCRACY. 

women, and children — even in the most progressive 
countries Hved in poverty and misery, or on a very 
low plane of material comfort. The loss must be made 
good and the former conditions made better. There 
must be at least food, clothing, and decent housing for 
all. May I not say, good homing? 

Whatever vocational knowledge and skill is needed in 
community, State, and Nation for the prosperity, health, 
and happiness of the people and for the service and 
strength of the Nation, our schools must give, unless 
they can be given more effectively and more economi- 
cally elsewhere. 

EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP. 

In a democracy like ours the duties of citizenship are 
of first concern to all. The State's first interest in the 
education of its citizens, present and future, is that they 
may be prepared to perform these duties intelligently 
and well. On this the free existence of the democratic 
state depends. As freedom and democracy extend, these 
duties become more numerous, complex, and difficult. 
It is not always easy to learn to what extent individual 
rights are limited by the rights of others and how firmly 
we must be guided by law and the underlying principles 
of constitutional freedom to prevent liberty from degen- 
erating into license to the destruction of itself and its 
votaries. The peoples but now released from the tyran- 
nies of autocracy, no doubt, must suffer much while they 
are learning these lessons. We, to whom freedom came 
less suddenly and who are more familiar with the ways 
of democracy, must be patient with them while they 
learn, and we must show the way as best we can and 
may, by example as well as by precept. 

Lessons in health and physical training, instruction in 
science and in its applications in the vocations, lessons in 
geography, history, and all school subjects, even the 
discipline of the school itself, are preparation for citi- 
zenship. But to these should be added more definite 
and formal instruction in this subject. Both in our 



EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 1 5 

elementary schools and in our high schools we must 
teach more eflfectively the things pertaining directly 
to the intelligent performance of the duties of citizen- 
ship. We must teach more effectively the history of our 
country and of its institutions, that our future citizens 
may learn to love their "land with a love far brought 
from out its storied past." We must teach civic duties 
pertaining to international relations. Above all must we 
teach that "fear, craft, and avarice can never build a 
state," and least of all a democratic state, which is in 
very large measure a thing of the spirit. 

EDUCATION FOR CULTURE. 

Health, material wealth, good government, even the 
freedom and democracy for which we have paid such a 
great price, are not ends within themselves, but only 
means to the higher ends of social purity and individual 
culture, happiness, and welfare. They are good only 
as they contribute to these higher ends. It were a 
tragedy indeed if in our planning of education for the 
new era of democracy and freedom we should overlook 
those things of highest and most lasting value. Should 
we fail in this we shall have failed in all. Not even free- 
men in a democracy can live by bread alone, or by the 
processes of government. Health, wealth, freedom, 
must be made to contribute to the things of the spirit, 
to all that is highest and best in the development of 
humanity. 

Literature, art, music, philosophy, knowledge for the 
satisfaction of the intellect and beauty for the inspira- 
tion of the heart and the culture of the soul — all that is 
best in the old education — should be retained in the new 
and supplemented by whatever may contribute further 
to the education of freemen who have finally, by their 
knowledge and control of the forces of nature, lifted 
themselves above the plane of constant slavery to the 
needs of their bodies. All the best that has been thought 
and said and done should become the common heritage 
of all. The education of the future must be liberal in 



l6 EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 

the old sense as well as in the new sense. In the new 
V world of democracy it should come about that, when the 
' lawyer comes home from his office, the judge from his 
bench, the minister from his pulpit and study, the 
banker from his counting house, the business man from 
his office, the legislator from his debates, the society 
woman from her round of social duties, the teacher from 
the school, the farmer from the field, the woodsman from 
the forest, the laborer from the mill and the miner from 
his dusty labors underground, and the housewife lays 
aside her never ending tasks, each having earned by his 
daily labor his daily bread and contributed his part to 
the common wealth, and all having performed intelli- 
gently and honestly the duties of citizenship, they shall 
all be men and women together, free human beings, with 
all the sweetness and light of which each is capable, 
each having the windows of his soul open for the influx of all 
good influences and each walking unafraid and unabashed 
among his fellows, looking them level-eyed in the face, 
feeling and knowing that he is a man among men, cring- 
ing to none, disdaining to look with contempt upon any. 
It is for results like these that the battles have been 
fought and millions of young men bravely have died. 
For results like these we must plan as the supreme aim 
of education. They are the final aim of democracy in 
the world. 

HIGH-SCHOOL EDUCATION FOR ALL. 

The school system that would meet the direct need of 
all the people of our democracy must provide at least 
high-school education for all; some kind and degree of 
systematic instruction and training through the early 
and middle ages of adolescence, "the golden period of 
youth" when, as at no other time, ideals are formed and 
the principles of natural science and of institutional life 
can first be understood. We must now very soon solve 
the problem of universal high-school education of a 
democratic basis, not only for vocational efficiency and 
for citizenship, but for individual culture as well. In 



EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 1/ 

the meantime we must, through some form of extension 
education, provide instruction, especially in the things 
pertaining to citizenship, for the millions of our boys 
and girls who have left school before completing the 
high-school age. 

HIGHER EDUCATION. 

For a great and free people, intelligent and prosperous, 
there must be always an adequate supply of trained 
leaders. These our institutions of higher learning must 
supply, and for this task these institutions must be much 
more liberally supported than they are now. That these 
may not fail or go astray in their task they must be 
constantly readjusted to a democracy whose principles 
are unchanging and eternal, fixed in the nature of man 
and the constitution of the universe, but whose spirit 
and form are constantly changing, developing, and 
expanding. 

To discuss these institutions of higher learning, their 
organization and function, in any detail, can be no part 
of the present task. Suffice it to say that they should 
conscientiously regard themselves as integral parts of the 
system of education supported for the service of State 
and Nation and of all the people in all their interests, and 
should be organized on this basis. Each should find 
its chief glory in effective and efficient service, on the 
most economical basis, and never in any form of self- 
aggrandizement at the cost of the common good or in 
disregard of other parts of the system of public edu- 
cation. Much readjustment will be necessary for the 
most effective ser\dce, both of the students within their 
walls and of the much larger number of people who can 
be reached only indirectly through some form of exten- 
sion teaching. 

THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS. 

To one phase of higher education I would call special 
attention — that of preparing teachers for elementary and 
secondarv schools. Teachers for the first are usuallv 



l3 EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 

prepared, when they have any professional preparation 
at all, in the normal schools. Teachers for the high 
schools are prepared in colleges and universities, a very 
large per cent of which now maintain, in some form, a 
school or department of education, or at least offer 
courses in education. The supply of teachers with any 
adequate professional training, or for that matter with 
any reasonable degree of academic education, has never 
been anything like equal to the demand, and is now less 
equal than for many years past. 

After all else is done the character and efficiency of the 
schools depend upon the teachers. Possibly the most 
important function of a democracy is to select and prepare 
and put into the schools teachers competent to do the 
work which should be required of them, and to keep them 
there until and after they have gained the professional 
knowledge, power, and skill that come only from 
intelligent and successful experience. 

Our normal schools and the departments and schools 
of education in our colleges and universities have done 
their task nobly and well in so far as public sentiment 
and the means at their command have permitted, but 
there is great need of a juster and more comprehensive 
understanding of the purposes and aims of their work, 
and of at least three times as much money as is now given 
for their support. Any people who would support 
public schools at public expense should learn at least 
to insure themselves against loss of the moneys appro- 
priated therefor by providing liberally for the prepara- 
tion of the teachers who make the schools and who give 
to the money used in their support whatever value it 
has. 

COOPERATION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 

All this that I have thus briefly set forth and much 
more that can not even be mentioned now will cost 
much careful thinking, wise organization, and much 
more money than most of us have ever dreamed of 
devoting to it. But in a democracy in which every- 



EDUCATION FOR KSTABUSHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 1 9 

thing — social purity, civic righteousness, political power, 
national safety, individual culture, and material wealth 
— waits upon education, we must find the means for its 
adequate support. In such a State surely the support 
of schools and other means of education should constitute 
the first and largest charge upon the public revenues. 
Would it be setting too high a value upon public educa- 
tion to suppose that the money available for its sup- 
port should, in ordinary times of peace, equal or exceed 
that devoted to all other public purposes? Such a sup- 
position is made more reasonable when it is remembered 
that only through comprehensive popular education 
other expenditures, both for peace and for war, can be 
made effective. Certainly in a democracy every dollar 
of wealth is under first mortgage for the education of all 
the children. Long ago President BHot made the claim 
that in a democracy the education of the child should 
cost at least as much as its food or clothing. In this 
time of the high cost of living and of low salaries for 
teachers we are very far from this very reasonable ideal. 
Indeed, while our American public school system has 
been and is our chief glory, the way we pay our teachers 
and otherwise support our schools is little less than a 
national shame and disgrace. What is the remedy? 
Probably the remedy for lack of money and for much 
else must be found in the cooperation of the Nation 
with the States in the support and promotion of educa- 
tion. 

I hardly need remind you how our schools were first 
the care and interest of local communities only or chiefly 
and that only within the last half century have they 
become fully established as an interest of and a charge 
upon the revenues of the State and have come in a con- 
siderable degree under State control. The fact that we 
still speak of State aid and are now beginning to speak of 
National aid points to the time when the schools were 
considered only of local interest and received only local 
support, and indicates that local interest and local sup- 
port still predominate. Nor need I remind you how 



20 e;ducation for establishment of democracy. 

jealously local communities and States have protested 
against any form of Federal control or interference. 
Willingly they have accepted gifts of money and land 
from the Federal Government, but only v/ithin the last 
five or six years have they accepted any form of control 
or direction of the use of Federal funds, and now only 
under protest or with bare tolerance. 

But the war has turned a searchlight on the Nation's 
interest in the education of its citizens. We have, as it 
were overnight, come to see that just as the prosperity, 
wealth, welfare, and safety of the States depend on the 
intelligence and virtue — that is, upon the education — of 
their citizens, so, and to an equal if not larger extent, do 
the wealth, power, and safety of the Nation depend on 
the intelligence and virtue — that is, upon the education — 
of its citizens. The strength of the Nation does not con- 
sist of the combined strength of the 48 States, but in the 
strength of the Nation's hundred and ten millions and 
more of people who are citizens of the Nation at the same 
time and to the same extent that they are citizens of 
their respective States. The Federal Government, there- 
fore, has an interest at stake, and this interest carries 
responsibilities. 

These responsibilities include support, kindly and wise 
guidance, and the requirement of certain minimum stand- 
ards in education. Beginning at once with, say, $125,- 
000,000 a year, and increasing at regular stages to not 
less than $300,000,000 within the decade, the Federal 
Government should appropriate money to cooperate 
with the States in the education of children and youth 
who are citizens alike of State and Nation. After this 
appropriation has reached its maximum as here indi- 
cated, it should increase annually by at least 4 per cent 
of $300,000,000. This will be necessary to meet the 
annual increase of 2 per cent in school attendance, and 
another very desirable increase of 2 per cent in the effi- 
ciency of the schools. The Federal aid should, in just 
and right proportion, be given for elementary and sec- 
ondary schools, for the preparation of teachers in normal 



EDUCATION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 21 

schools and elsewhere, for higher education, and for 
extension education, including the support of public 
libraries for all the people. It should be all given for 
the pay of teachers and for the direct and necessary 
means of teaching. Nothing should be given for grounds 
and buildings or for permanent equipment. Every ap- 
propriation should be apportioned to the States on the 
basis of the number of persons to be educated and of the 
use made of it, which last can probably be measured best 
by the total number of days of attendance. States re- 
ceiving Federal aid should be required to give from State, 
county, and local treasuries at least twice as much as 
they receive from the Federal Treasury and for the same 
purposes. They should be required to give also, free of 
charge, as nearly as possible, equal opportunity of edu- 
cation to all children, including health education, voca- 
tional education, and education for citizenship. Certain 
minimum standards of attendance, say, i6o days of 
schooling per year for all children between 6 and 14 years 
of age, and not less than 480 hours for all between 14 and 
18 years should be required. 

The Federal Government should also equip itself for 
the study of all the important problems of education 
and for giving to the people of the States the results 
of such studies by way of information and kindly advice. 
It should do everything possible for protection against 
all violent changes in the work of education which would 
interfere with its wise and orderly development, and 
should then refrain severely and consistently from all 
meddlesome interference with State and local adminis- 
tration of schools. It is of the very essence of our de- 
mocracy to be alive and intelligent in all its parts, and 
our wisdom is to adjust national efficiency to State and 
local self-government. I feel sure the way can be 
found. 

A plan such as I have tried here briefly to suggest would 
soon result in an effective national system of democratic 
education, with all the strength of national support and 



2 2 EDUCATION FOR ESTABUSHMENT OP DEMOCRACY. 

guidance and all the vigor and freshness and perennial 
youth of local support, control, and initiative. 

INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION. 

May I tax your patience a minute longer only to men- 
tion one thing more which I believe to be necessary to 
the full development of our systems of education for 
democracy in this and other countries. I refer to an 
international bureau of education, such as was planned 
for discussion, and it was hoped for adoption also, at the 
International Conference on Education called by the 
Dutch Government at the instance of our Government 
to meet at the Hague in September, 1914, and to which 
most of the important governments appointed official 
representatives.^ The constitution of the League of 
Nations will make the formation of such a bureau much 
easier than it would have been before. The services 
which such an international agency could render to 
education are many and of very great importance. 

For all these things let us work as should those on 
whom the task of building the new order of things for 
world democracy rests as on no others. 

May I close with this quotation from the eloquent and 
wise words of your President: "We are enlisted in a 
great cause. We seek to perpetuate the democratic 
institutions for which our men have given their lives. 
We are ready to assume the place of leadership which 
our profession must take, and we have faith in the re- 
sponse which the people of the country will give in support 
of our program," and, let me add, of all our great work. 

1 This conference was not held because of the ontbreak of the war in August. 

o 



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